Day 6 The View From Here Moments in May 2015 Challenge

Everything comes to those who wait. Longfellow

My husband, known around here as the Night Ranger, and I embark on our two-hundred-mile drive up north to the cabin.

He wants to get the pontoon out of the pole barn and make room for other things. “Let’s do it today,” he says.

I want to, too. Two seasons is two too long to wait for the ice to melt in Ottertail County, Minnesota. Time to launch it.

Whirling somewhere in the gray matter, though, is the thought that the pontoon never gives us an easy go of it. Whether it’s getting her out of the water in the fall, getting her onto the trailer, or launching her in spring, she loves to misbehave whenever she can. This year is sure to be different. We bought a bunk trailer so that all will go well.

Shortly before we reach our turn off of the Interstate and on to our remaining fifty miles, we pull up an entrance ramp and I let Mick, our golden retriever, out for a break. The wind ripples through his fur and bends his ears back as though he were in a car going fifty miles an hour with the windows down. Windy day, I think.

We pass along the road that takes us by our lake. I know I have a four-mile boat ride from North Bay’s public access to our dock. “Think I should be concerned about being on the pontoon with the white caps?”

“What?” hubby says, seeing the same white-tipped surfs I am seeing every three feet across the lake. Some think people might call them rollers.

“That’s hardly any chop.” he said. This said from a man who feels fine, sunshine, rain, fog or six-foot waves, in his fishing boat on Lake Michigan or on a rented Boston-Whaler on the Gulf of Mexico or Atlantic side of the Keys.

“Okay,” I say, trustingly. I wonder how often other women get in to trouble this way.

We make a quick stop at the cabin and unload Mick, our groceries, and our stuff, and continue on to the farm.

Husband opens the doors to the pole barn where we store the boat. While he does so, I notice how low my phone’s battery has become and wish I’d remembered to bring the charger.

Before we get to work on the boat, the Night Ranger and I take an hour on the four-wheeler to gallivant the property. He shows me all the new things that have been done to the property since last year. Five hundred new itty-bitty blue spruce rim the ten acres of tillable soil, four new food plots are in, new trails have been carved, new deer stands are now in place – one mesmerizing in its height and stature. Every inch of our acreage is a-squawk and noisy. Spring is in full swing.

We come back to the pole barn. I check my cell phone in the truck. I am down to an eighth of a battery. I shut the phone off, hop out the truck and walk to the barn.

Voila. There she stands. Wrapped in tarp with the ground around her encircled in Bounce dryer sheets to keep the mice at bay.

Husband and I both notice the American flag on the ground next to the pontoon. Odd. We store the flag on the floor of the pontoon as the flag pole is located right next to the dock. “Hm,” husband says. “That flag was stored in the pontoon.”

I pick up Old Glory. These are not colorblind mice. One might even say, given that they had used it to keep warm, that they were rather patriotic. They had shredded the flag in perfect red and white rows. Makes sense, in a way. They are American mice.

Hubby pulls the boat out, pulls the playpen boat cover off. No sign of mice are inside like they were last year when Rick unzipped the bimini top and a mommy mouse and her five babies spilled out and ran off the boat.

I powerwash my aluminum friend from stern to bow. She shines like the beaut she has always been.

Hubby notices the wind, finally. “Though it’s out of the way for me to bring the trailer back, just to be safe, let’s launch the boat at the south public access. That way it will be a lot closer for you to get back to our dock.”

Being the anti-tick guy he is and not wanting any on the wet floor of the pontoon, he tucks the boat cover behind the motor and off we head to the boat access.

We arrive at the launch about five o’clock. This is our maiden launch with the bunk trailer. In low water levels.

Hubby starts the pontoon’s engine and reminds me once more about how to start the motor, how easily it will flood if it stalls, what to do if it does stall. Not to worry. I know the drill. I drive the pontoon around this lake by myself all the time. He removes the boat cover from being tucked behind the motor and puts it in the back of the boat, confident all ticks have now flown off from our drive over.

I stay in the pontoon while he climbs back in the truck on the ramp and up-and-downs the trailer then slams on the brakes in hopes of releasing the pontoon. My phone makes a noise. I look at it. Battery low. Plug it into charger.

I am suddenly jerked quite a bit. The boat has moved nine whole inches. After another four tries, my husband stands waist high in his shorts and tries to budge the several-thousand-pound boat off its trailer. I sit on the bow and try too. My butt gets drenched. Oops. Forgot the boat is still saturated from being powerwashed. I look at the back of the truck, a little worried about the exhaust pipe gurgling underwater. The Night Ranger returns to the cab of the truck. After a few more brake-slams, the pontoon shrugs herself from the trailer. She is lake-launched.

“Ok,” husband says. “I’ll see you back at the dock. Hopefully I’ll beat you there. I really hope nothing happens because the fishing boat hasn’t been used yet and needs an hour’s worth of work before it will be ready to be put in the water.”

Not to worry, I tell him. I’m good to go. I put the pontoon in gear and head off slowly, letting her get used to her sea legs again. My phone raises its voice again. Yes, I say to it. We’ll be home in five minutes and I’ll plug you in.

I inhale. Finally. Finally winter has traveled to Australia. I take in the view from the pontoon and look at the sky, darkening. I look along the shoreline to my right. Nice to see the house that took four years to build is now finished. It’s gorgeous, especially with its windows so sparklingly reflecting the storm clouds interwoven with the sun.

The wind is just right. It is at my back and seems to pull me toward the center of the lake. I raise my speed a notch. I’ll beat my husband home at this rate.

Silence. The boat comes to a standstill. I take a deep breath, my composure now gained. I know exactly what to do. All good and fine, except when you know what to do doesn’t work.

A moment later I hear a critical low battery squawk and my phone ring. It is my son back in Minneapolis calling to talk. He receives instead my urgent words, “I’m almost out of battery. Can you call your dad and tell him the motor killed and I can’t get it restarted.”

Apparently…my message is not clear. How was my son to know I am on a pontoon and it is my cell phone battery which is nearly spent.

Husband calls. “Where are you?”

Well, I’m somewhere between the boat access and our dock. I give him landmarks. Then he asks lots of questions in rapid succession, starting with how the pontoon’s battery could be dead when it was at a full charge at the dock.

I explain what has happened and what I did to try to get the boat started again. He talks me through it again on the phone but nothing works.

“Unbelievable,” he says. “It’s the curse of the pontoon.” I think that was one of his final words before, “I’ll come as quick as I can. Put out the anchor and just wait for me.”

I take no chances with the anchor. I securely fasten it then wrap the remaining spare rope around my legs and around my hands. A half-hour goes by. I shut off my phone to preserve the little battery left, zip my sweatshirt and put up the hood. Feels chilly and realize I am still wet from my butt-saturating episode at the access and from having powerwashed the boat several hours ago.

I relax with not a worry in the world. My husband will be here eventually. Besides, patience is indeed a virtue and I put it into practice. I think about the fact that spring is here, the ice is gone, the pontoon is launched, and I am in my happy place and the sunset, from the looks of it, is going to put on a show in about a half-hour.

A lone boat comes by, the driver waves. Hi, I wave back. I’m fine. Fine. Just waiting for hubby to disconnect the bunk trailer, connect the fishing boat and trailer, and come ‘round to the boat access, launch it, park the truck, hop in the fishing boat and tear across the lake to me.

Now and then I look over at the boat launch. It seems to be getting farther away. I turn around. The anchor has not held. I am thirty feet from a very weedy shoreline, complete with downed trees, and what is that white foamy stuff slamming into the weeds? From across the lake I hear a roar. “Julieeeeee?”

I’m here I yell against the wind. I’m here. The last boat on the lake. The one with no power, no lights and now fifteen feet from being slammed into a downed tree.

I see hubby in the fishing boat cutting across the water to me. It takes him awhile. I’m thinking because of, well, I think he’d even call it a decent chop.

The Night Ranger arrives; I pull up the thirty feet of rope and lift the disgustingly filthy anchor on to the front lip of the pontoon’s beige carpet. Whatever. C’est la vie.

Soon I’m being tugged by the twenty-four-year-old fishing boat that could. It doesn’t seem to be going very fast. From the view of the pontoon, I watch as Richard the Lion-hearted in the fishing boat checks first his neck, then his arms, then his back to make himself tick-free. I turn on my phone. I have enough battery to take a couple of pictures of what I hope will be many sunsets on the lake this year.

We eventually reach the dock. We exchange places. I drive the fishing boat. He jumps in the lake and guides the pontoon to shore and ties her up. I swing around to the dock and he jumps in and we head back to the boat access to put the boat on the trailer and retrieve our truck. I learn the fishing boat’s battery was dead and hubby had to use the trolling motor’s battery to rescue the pontoon and me. We will have to, tomorrow, purchase a new battery before the fishing boat will be lake-ready.

All is well. So is the pontoon. Now that the fuel line has been reconnected.